AMD ramping up Fab 36 production

AMD's Fab 36 is starting to ramp up. The first 12-inch wafers are already in production and executives recently gave permission to ramp up the production to 13,000 wafer starts a week.

They also plan to start 65nm production in the fourth quarter of this year.

However, the situation is not entirely rosy. We've heard partners and distributors spreading a lot of bitter comments regarding AMD's tight supply of the processors, which is allegedly due to the "extreme success" of the Opteron Series 800's, which customers are really buying like there's no tomorrow. AMD currently has 40 per cent of the world's 4P server market, and the company reps are confident the firm will take the lead in that segment before the end of the year.

The other buzz is that AMD has yield problem, and that's the main reason why some wafers are being built with strained SOI and others on "regular" SOI wafers.